something this town will forever talk about

woo woo endowment is done! spring semester classes are registered! we are now wearing one more layer than we were before and so far I haven't noticed a thing

notes from the endowment itself... won't go into too much detail obviously

- i had to show up early in order to do my initiatory in preparation for the actual endowment. before that happened, I met with the temple matron (wife of the president) and she explained the general gist of what would happen... except I already knew everything she was telling me because I'd seen videos. SO. I was inexplicably very anxious that entire conversation

- then we got dressed in proper ceremonial clothes and stuff. that was fine. not too different from what it's like to do baptisms, honestly, except I wear sandals over the socks and I have a bag of extra stuff that I carry with me.

-  chose to go to a temple farther away than the temple I usually go to. It's bigger, with more rooms that have murals and stuff on them. Next time I will go to the closer temple, but for my first time I wanted it to be special.

- anyway. initiatory I was still stressed. but I figured out that if I shut my eyes and didn't try to hold eye contact with the person doing the ceremony, I didn't get quite so bad. And some of the words they said really resonated with me.

- There's a certain word you get in the initiatory that you take with you to the rest of the stuff. I really liked the one I got.

- the endowment itself... went into the room and it was empty. we waited a longggg time to start and I was still very anxious. I got my friend Sam, who was coming with me, to let me have her bracelet to fidget with and I pretty much fidgeted with that the whole time. My hands got really sweaty.

- the actual rituals weren't too bad. but the waiting and the sitting still and not having anything at ALL to do, when I'm used to doodling or taking notes all the time... it made me really on edge. At some point Sam (who is wonderful and also very good at noticing stuff about her friends' emotional states) gave me her hand to hold onto and that really helped. It was a little weird, but it also helped a lot because I was slightly freaking out and I didn't want to be freaking out.

- at the end I was just glad that I made it all the way through. I was too stressed and keyed up to stay in the celestial room for very long, so I just said hi to all my friends who had come through with me (and I was very glad they did! Every time a new person I recognized came out I was like yay! Another person who likes me and is here for this important thing!!) and then went straight out to get dressed again.

- there was a bit of confusion about where to meet up afterward but eventually we worked it out and I got out cookies and muffins for them, and a bunch of real food for myself because I had been fasting the whole day. It was really nice to have a bunch of people I knew and liked in the same group. We took pictures which was really neat

- of course I can't write this up without mentioning the absolutely banger outfit I showed up in. my hair was cool, I got a red jacket and black pants and black pointy heels that I bought at the thrift store thirty minutes before I had to leave for the temple. I kid you not. I made the outfit, looked at the available shoes, and realized that I did not have the Correct Shoes for this outfit. So I went to the thrift store and lo and behold they had shoes in my size that were exactly what I needed. God is awesome